Valladolid

Cenote X’keken… …one of the most widely photographed cenote in the Yucatan

Dates visited: December 18, 2011 and December 21, 2011

We stopped in this pretty colonial town twice—once on our drive from Cancun to Merida, and the second time on our drive from Chichén Itzá to Playa del Carmen. It’s a lively place to just wander around and spend a few hours just watching the locals.

In addition to seeing the church of San Bernardino de Siena (1552), we also visited Cenote X’keken. To see this cenote, we descended to a giant cave using a dilapidated and slippery stair case. There were warning signs posted in Spanish and English, but clearly the Spanish-to-English translation tool must have been in its beta stage because the translations made absolutely no sense! The cenote itself is beautiful with with stalactites and stalagmites. The inside was wonderfully lit up with colored lights. We were a little cenote-shy so we did not try swimming in the cool water, but clearly the folks who were in there were having a wonderful time.

San Servacio Cathedral

Why not keep you guessing what the sign means until you slip on the wet stones?

A colorful street

If you don’t know what that means, just walk the way Spanish-reading “visitours” walk and you should be fine